Journey to Jo’burg
Groundbreaking book set in South Africa during the apartheid era and banned by its government. More
Profiles in Courage
Pulitzer Prize winner that helped propel the young senator to the White House. More
Judith Kerr: Beyond The Tiger Who Came to Tea
Collins author Judith Kerr may be best known in the UK for her classic children’s picture books The Tiger Who Came to Tea and Mog the Forgetful Cat, but she is also renowned for her powerful autobiographical novels about her childhood and young adulthood. More
Sounder
Newbery Award–winning book that became an influential children’s work on race and class. More
Red Scarf Girl
Searing memoir set during the height of the Cultural Revolution in China. More
Geronimo Johnson
I write to unread what has been written about me in error and with malice. More
Letter from John Donovan submitting the manuscript for I’ll Get There. It Better Be Worth the Trip.
In June 1968, author John Donovan wrote to Ursula Nordstrom, head of the U.S. Harper Children’s division, asking her to read the manuscript... More
Letter to Eleanor Roosevelt regarding a new autobiographical book
Harper editor and chairman of the board Cass Canfield sent this letter, dated April 10, 1951, to Eleanor Roosevelt... More
Social Change: Sex in the 20th Century
In between the two world wars, Harper authors tackled the then taboo subject of sex. More
Native Son
Wright’s unsparing reflection on what it means to be black in America. More
1978: Harper & Row publishes Armistead Maupin’s Tales of the City series…
Harper & Row publishes the first book in Armistead Maupin’s Tales of the City series after it is serialized in the San Francisco Chronicle. The series highlights gay issues and becomes a cultural icon for generations of readers. More
2000: Gao Xingjian becomes the first Chinese author to win the Nobel Prize for Literature…
Gao Xingjian becomes the first Chinese author to win the Nobel Prize for Literature after HarperCollins Australia publishes his novel Soul Mountain. More
Social Change: Women Writers
In the mid-late 1800s, Harper & Brothers reprinted several milestone titles in the history of British feminist literature as well as the global canon, such as Emily Brontë’s Wuthering Heights (1847), Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre (1847), and Anne Brontë’s The Tenant of Wildfell Hall (1848), as well as George Eliot’s Middlemarch (1872). More
Periodicals: Harper’s Weekly, Harper’s New Monthly and Harper’s Bazaar
The Harper brothers consistently sought ways to reach more readers with less expensive publications, and in 1850 they revolutionized the concept of the modern literary magazine with Harper’s New Monthly Magazine. More
Sympathy telegram to Coretta Scott King following the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr.
The day after the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. (April 5, 1968), Harper honorary director Cass Canfield sent this telegram... More
Garth Williams, Illustrator
Garth Williams was a little-known but talented young illustrator when he was commissioned by Ursula Nordstrom, head of Harper’s Department of Books for Boys and Girls, to illustrate the classic Stuart Little by E. B. White. More
1972: Avon launches the historical romance genre…
Avon launches the historical romance genre when it publishes Kathleen Woodiwiss’s The Flame and the Flower, a historical romance with a strong female lead and sexual situations that go a step beyond the tame romances of earlier eras. More
1958: Reverend Martin Luther King Jr. selects Harper & Brothers to publish his memoir…
After leading the Montgomery bus boycott in 1955 and becoming the voice of the civil rights movement, the Reverend Martin Luther King Jr. selects Harper & Brothers to publish Stride Toward Freedom, his memoir about the Montgomery bus boycott. More
Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World
One of Harper & Brothers’ most famous and influential authors was Aldous Huxley, who signed with the publisher in 1927 and published his first book, Texts and Pretexts, with them in 1932. More
When Hitler Stole Pink Rabbit
A child’s perspective as a refugee during the rise of Nazism; now a modern classic. More
Social Change: Collins Gives Back
In the UK, William Collins II of Collins and Sons took up labor causes, especially child labor. More
1937: Zora Neale Hurston’s masterpiece, Their Eyes Were Watching God is published…
J. B. Lippincott publishes Zora Neale Hurston’s masterpiece, Their Eyes Were Watching God. More
1970: Harper & Row publishes the first English translation of One Hundred Years of Solitude…
Harper & Row publishes the first English translation of One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel García Márquez, establishing him as a leading young Latin American writer and a dominant and innovative figure on the global literary scene. More
Go Set a Watchman
This newly discovered novel from beloved author Harper Lee became the bestselling book of 2015. More
Half of a Yellow Sun
Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s masterpiece, and winner of the Orange Prize for Fiction. More
Rita Williams-Garcia
My childhood reading helped to build me from the inside. More
The Downing Street Years
Compelling account of Thatcher’s remarkable life in her own words. More